Little peeing house guests

This weekend was a wet, rainy weekend so we all spent time indoors. Wesley loves standing, no interest in moving those feet just likes to stand and hold onto furniture. He's been getting extra attention from our new house guests. My parents went to Germany for two weeks so we are watching their two dogs for them while they are away. We have a grand total of five dogs in the house with us and since it's raining out we also have 20 little paws tacking mud all over the place. To add to that they are two little boy dogs that have spent the entire weekend marking everything in sight. All weekend I've been yelling obscenities and cleaning up pee. It's going to be a wonderfully pleasant next two weeks....hmmmm actually less than two weeks now..........only 13 days, 18 hours and 43 minutes until they leave. I will add a ticker to the top of the blog to countdown the days until I can do the dance of joy as they go home.

I was doing some surfing on the web last night after Wesley went to bed and ran across the most adorable little thing you could ever imagine. I was unaware they made little tiny suits for infants and toddlers. This tiny little suit comes with a white dress shirt, vest, tie, jacket and dress slacks. All this for $16.99 on eBay, brand new. How do they make that for $16.99? They come in black, blue, white and khaki. I am so getting one for Wesley to wear to my sister's wedding in May. Way too cute.

Here are some other cute pictures from this weekend:

We all need....

....a good laugh now and again.

Our little foodie

We are venturing into the land of finger foods. Wesley can pick the food up off his high chair tray but won't put it in his mouth. He's quite content to have me place the food in his open mouth though. He loves the little Gerber Banana puffs, noodles and little chunks of banana. This weekend I'm going to cook up some little pieces of carrots, potato, chicken and noodles in veggie stock and see if he'll eat that. We've mastered every fruit and veggie puree I can think of. He likes everything....even the previously putrid green beans he'll happily swallow down now. At almost nine months his daily menu is: at breakfast he'll have three freezer cubes of applesauce with half a banana and oatmeal all thrown in the little blender, lunch is a cube of sweet tators, applesauce, butternut squash, other half of banana all blended, dinner is a jar of chicken or turkey stew, veggie and container of pears if still hungry. I'm hoping by 11 months he's eating whatever we're eating. We'll be holding off on strawberries (berries in general), egg, citrus, tomatoes, cow milk, peanuts and honey until he's one year old. It's a lot of fun introducing him to the glorious wide world of food.

First Buzz

The child has some crazy hair that sticks straight up, so today I got the buzzers out that I cut Sean's hair with and put the 1/4 inch fitting on and went to town. He has no hair now. I butchered his poor hair. Although after looking at it all day today I kind of like it. Wesley has had a huge head since birth so the new haircut actually makes his head look normal size.

He found his voice!

Here is video of his new language....the "dadadada language". But I am proud to announce that tonight during dinner he said "Mama" as clear as day. Sean and I just looked at each other in astonishment. It is so amazing to be around this little person every day and see him change and develop. I am in awe.

Celebrity Morph

While surfing around the web last night I ran into a website called myheritage.com where you upload a picture and it will find the celebrity you most look like and will morph you into that person. Way too much fun. Here is Wesley morphing into Jonathan Tylor Thomas (kid from Home Improvement), I guess he was a 60% match:

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Family tree template - Black and white photographs

I also did my picture.....I'm so depressed. My closest match is to Haley Joel Osment or Candace Bergen. Time for a make over.

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Drawing a family tree - Family tree templates

Randomness through pictures

Not much exciting is happening around here so I thought I'd share some pictures. First picture is why I'm not too worried about this child eating enough. He has the chubbiest little thighs ever. They are about as big around as my upper arms (which haven't returned to their normal size since the pregnancy....but that's a whole nother story). I think he's eating enough.

Next we have Sean shoveling food into Wesley. This child is a bottomless pit. He eats and eats and eats and still wants more. Last night for dinner he had a jar of chicken stew baby food, two frozen cubes of applesauce, a container of pear blueberry, half a jar of harvest veggies and a cube of butternut squash. I think he would have eaten more if we had kept going. I guess this all contributes to the first picture.

Here we have Wesley doing what Wesley does best: destroying. To go to the bathroom I have to take this child into the bathroom with me so he won't wail. The separation anxiety thing is a pain in my rear. SO he sits there while I'm doing my business and removes every magazine from the rack and rips them up.

And last we have Wesley and Cisco just chillin on the living room floor watching Wheel of Fortune. It's a rough life.

Silly little goofball

Here he is just chillin in his high chair after eating this morning.

Our kid unfriendly backyard

There are such things as kid friendly backyards. You know the nicely fenced in yards with swing sets and big shade trees, sand boxes and fun things to climb all over? Yeah, well our back yard is nothing like this. You will remember back in October when I wrote about our plans to get rid of our in ground pool, if you don't remember here is the post. I hope to one day have that nice kid friendly back yard, but for now I have this.



This is a big hole in the ground that was once our pool. Sean has been working on it almost every evening when he gets home from work and every weekend. He's such a hard worker. He started by removing the giant wrap around deck, then removing the pool liner. Then he jack hammered all the concrete decking around the pool and threw those concrete chunks into the deep end of the pool. Here he is standing in the deep end that is full of broken up concrete.



It literally looks like a tornado went through our back yard. It makes me want to cry looking out there, but there is the hope of it being done one day. It has to be the most kid unfriendly yard ever. There is rusty sharp metal chunks lying around, with rebar chunks coming out of the ground. Don't forget the rusty screws and glass (who knows where it came from). If all goes well Wesley won't even know there was once a pool in our backyard. Here it was last fall as Sean was emptying it for the final time and had started taking the deck apart. Farewell pool, you will be missed....maybe.

Daddy's Boy

Last night he started saying "Dada" and hasn't stopped since. All evening it was "dadadadadadada dadadada dadadada". Sean is so proud. I know Wesley doesn't know what it means but it's awfully cute. He's actually sitting next to me in his high chair as I write saying dadadadada. Oh it's so precious. I'll have to get a video.

Here are some pictures of him being a big boy. He's not pulling up yet but I can prop him up next to things like the chair and let go long enough to take the picture before he topples over. It's kind of a fake picture but oh well. :) He's looking all cute in his big boy 12 month clothes.



He'll sit like this with his bucket of toys and bucket of books for almost an hour every day, pulling out books and flipping through them. Then he'll empty the bucket of toys after thoroughly examining every toy.

My shopping buddy

So with the impending nuptials of my sister in May I find myself as a bridesmaid without a dress. I was hoping to find one up in Kansas City last weekend but was unsuccessful. So Wesley and I traveled into the local mall Monday and tried on several more dresses. After being a wonderful baby for the KC shopping spree I assumed he would continue his model behavior for me here in town. I was mistaken. It seems he had only taken his happy baby juice that day. Monday he started screaming the second he was placed in the stroller so I stuck him in the Baby Bjorn (which he's too big for) and toted him around the shops. This is fine for selecting dresses but swiftly becomes a problem when I actually have to try the dresses on. So he sat on the dressing room floor and emptied every item from my purse while I threw dresses on at warp speed. I ended up settling on the second dress I found, mainly just so we could go home. I'll probably end up changing my mind about it and taking it back, but for now I have a dress and Wesley is done shopping...that is until I need to find shoes.

Life on the homefront

After weeks of refusing to sleep in his crib for a nap....I have achieved victory! Wesley is sleeping in his crib as I type. It is wonderful. Every time his head hit the mattress in the crib he would scream like crazy so I would just pick him up put him in his stroller and go for a walk. He'd sleep, life is good. Well I knew this would work until our first rainy day. Today it poured. So today I put him in his crib at nap time, he screamed, I sang to him, he screamed even louder, I sang even louder....then he passed out after 8 minutes of this. Victory is mine. I've decided it is so hard to not nurse a child to sleep.

In the eating department Wesley is moving on up the food chain. He's been trying chicken for almost a week now. Seems to like it alright. He tried some noodles today, yum yum. Still can't figure out how to feed himself but I assume that will happen in its own time. I find myself eating his baby food more and more often. When I get into the freezer to get a few cubes of frozen applesauce or sweet potato for Wesley I also grab a few for me. Homemade applesauce is so good. I roasted butternut squash last week for the first time. I'm learning how to cook up all sorts of stuff for Wesley that I've never made before. Quite a learning experience.

Off to Kansas City!

Wesley, my parents and I traveled to Kansas City for the weekend to visit my sister and her fiance, Blake. Blake's parents drove down from Minnesota and we all had a nice time getting to know each other. After we arrived Saturday, the girls (plus Wesley) went shopping for dresses which was fun. Wesley was quite the little trooper. He adjusted well being away from home and had a great time being pushed around the local mall in his stroller. That evening we went to Stroud's to eat. If you've never heard of Stroud's it is a tasty restaurant specializing in family style dinners of fried chicken, potatoes and such. Wesley sucked on the table the entire time but fully enjoyed himself. The worried, germaphobe Mom is quickly disappearing. The next morning we all piled into the mini van and traveled out to see the Chapel they will be getting married at along with the reception hall. It should be a beautiful wedding. On the way out of town to head home we all stopped at a big train show in downtown Kansas City. It was a fun trip seeing everyone. I am amazed at how well Wesley traveled and how he seemed to just soak up the whole experience. He's such a good little traveler, we'll have to get out more often! Here is a slide show of the trip.

Our little kid

I swear he changed from a baby into a little kid overnight!

Eight Months Old!

Here I find myself writing on the 12th of yet another month. Wesley's first year is speeding by, I can't believe how fast it's going. I have come to the realization, after eight months, that my life revolves around this child's eating and sleeping habits. Pooping comes in a close third. I realized this quickly when he was born but thought I would be old hand at it by this late in the game. Oh no, I don't think it ever goes away....it just changes.

I've discovered that I don't know how to put this child to bed without nursing him to sleep. That is what I've been doing for almost eight months and now he's decided to change it up on me. For the past two weeks I've tried nursing him, rocking him, walking him around, pretty much anything I can think of minus putting him in the car seat and driving around to get him to sleep. I'm at my wits end. Last night he and I were sitting on the couch watching the late show because he wouldn't go to sleep. At 11:45 I said "ENOUGH" and into the crib he went.....tears streaming, red faced he cried and cried and cried and finally passed out while I was in the shower (hey I can't hear him in there so he must not be crying, the old ostrich head in the sand theory). There must just be something in the air because I don't know what's going on. Maybe he's getting ready to do something...like cut a tooth or crawl or something.

Eating has had an overhaul as well. The child who would so lovingly cuddle up to me and nurse is now a squirmy, whiny child that wants little to do with the oobies. Which is fine, I know he would grow out of this phase (thank goodness), but I know he still needs most of his nutrition from the breast milk so it is important he nurses. With the solids comes a whole new set of worries. Is he getting the nutrients he needs in addition to boobie juice? Is he ready for finger foods? Who knows! We've just started giving him little banana puffs and he seems to like them. He will open up wide for me to place in his mouth, doesn't know how to place it in there himself. We're working on it though.

His buddy Alex came over yesterday. Alex is almost exactly 9 months older than Wesley and it's great seeing the differences in size in the beginning are quickly evening out.
Here is Alex at 9 months old and Wesley at 1 day old

Here is Alex at 17 months and Wesley at 8 months

Spring has arrived

I didn't realize how much the weather impacted my mood until this beautiful spring weather appeared last week. Wesley and I have been out walking every day and it's just improved my spirits ten fold. I think I had a serious case of the winter blues. I feel like a bear emerging from its den after an incredibly long winter.

I'd like to say that we go on walks every afternoon for the exercise but it has mainly been to make this child take a nap. He's completely boycotted napping during the day and it's driving me insane. For the past week he's only taken a nap in his stroller or car seat and refuses to nap in his room. I'm really hoping it's just a phase and he'll get back to his regular 1 o'clock nap because I can't get anything done, sculpture orders are just piling up and income would be nice. Oh well, only 4.5 short years until he starts school.

Crazy Farting Child

Turn your volume up for this jewel.

The New and Improved Monkey

We have a monkey that lives in our house. His name is Chance. Well, he's not really a real monkey....he's actually a tiny little terrier mix we adopted from the Humane Society. His nickname is Monkey. Today was a big day for Chance. He went to the groomers for the first time. You see, poor Chance's hair has gotten long enough that it has started to mat on his legs. He's always looked like moving roadkill to me anyways but the matting of the fur just added to this. I felt it was time to have something drastic done to his appearance. Here are his before photos:




I dropped him off this morning and told the groomer to do a schnauzer cut on his face, shave his body and give him a "lion" tail...you know with a tuft at the end. I do believe the other dogs were laughing at him once I brought him home. I swear that was the best $30 I've ever spent. They washed him, clipped his nails, cleaned his ears, trimmed his hair and emptied his anal glands (yeah...you don't want to know). He's so unhairy now! After pictures:

Grandpa's at it again!

I get a call the other day from my father who is very excited about a new toy he's found for Wesley. You must understand that my father is very excited to have a grandson, being a big kid himself he's happy to have an excuse to buy all the really neat little boy toys that are out there right now. You know how some people are adults with an inner child? Well my father is a child with an inner adult. So back to the new toy. He has found a thing called GeoTrax by FisherPrice. It is a train made for little ones 2 years and up. There is plastic track, little bridges, buildings and train engines made for little hands. He went on eBay and bought a whole set somebody was selling. It is set up in their living room and he and my Mother have been buying more sets when they come across them. I have to admit it is really cool. We think by this Christmas when Wesley is 1.5 years old he'll be able to play with it. By then it will have grown to cover every available inch of floor space I suspect. Below are pictures of Wesley and the GeoTrax over at my folks house. He was being all "Godzilla" like and whenever a train came near him he would pick it up and fling it across the room. Click on the pictures to see bigger images. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa, you're going to spoil this child rotten.

The Mamarazzi Strikes Again!

I've been taking way too many pictures again. Here is a compilation of the most recent cuties.

Get that %#&@ camera out of my face


Yes, almost 8 months old and still occasionally in the Bjorn


I shall stand and look at myself in the mirror


Now I shall smile and ride my tractor


Highchair toy time ROCKS!


Don't mind me I shall just sit here and read my book